


New Numbers

by Lidia1357



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Cole and David are my loves, Crossover, Healing, No Romance, One-Shot, PTSD, compassion - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-31
Updated: 2018-08-31
Packaged: 2019-07-04 20:46:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15849048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lidia1357/pseuds/Lidia1357
Summary: After the events at the Winter Palace, Cole returns to the Fade to heal the hurts he finds there. One voice calls him to the far reaches of the Fade none have dared venture. There, he meets a tormented dreamer who needs his help.





	New Numbers

**Author's Note:**

> A short I created when I met David Archer on Mass Effect. This is a request from my boyfriend. I love Cole and David (probably because they're so similar, considering Cole's behaviors is based off of Autistic behavior).

Floating. Waiting. Watching. Feeling the Fade. Listening. Helping. Healing. Quiet.  
Swirls of emerald light shimmers in the shadows of the Fade, crept down as it listens. There are no hurts here. Nothing that calls to it. Ever since it left the material world of Thedas it has wandered here. Looking for something. Someone. It calls it. It listens.  
Nothing.  
It moves on.  
Farther. Farther it travels. The Black City always at its back. The figure left the familiar branch of the Fade long ago. It could have been weeks, days, years. It does not know. Before the Fade felt like Thedas. A mirror cracked and distorted as it shows the hidden feelings of its reflection. Spirits of Faith, Wisdom, and Compassion wander with Demons of Pride, Desire, and Fear. The Dreamers look like Elves, Men, and Qunari. Now they look like… something else.  
It passes a child-like figure with bright, onyx eyes, and skin the color of a bright reptile. With teal flesh and crimson cheeks. He looks up at it with bright, scared eyes. He is lost.  
The figure stoops down and listens.  
The boy’s hurts are sharp. Bright. He remembers all. Nothing is forgotten. Not even its own birth. Images flash in a whirlwind of confusion as he tries to sort out his own death. The figure can only think of one way to help. The memories hurt. They are too much. He cannot pass to peace with so much pain lying before his eyes. It reaches its hand out before him, closes its eyes, and whispers the words it’s used many times before.  
“Forget.”  
The boy’s eyes relax as all of the tension and pain melts from them. He looks at the figure with unseeing eyes and finally speaks.  
“Where is the sea?” He whispers softly.   
The question surprises the figure. It straightens out and widens its awareness. The Fade is vast, but it can locate what will heal the hurt completely if it tries long enough. The Sea is a pocket of the Fade that it is unfamiliar with, but it does locate it. A sort of Heaven for other creatures like this one. It looks down at the young, unfamiliar being and reaches a hand out. “I will take you.”   
The boy looks at the hand skeptically, worry beginning to fill his black eyes again. “Are you Kalahira?”  
Thoughts and feelings swirl around the boy on this Kalahira. A name, a thought. A feeling. A faith.  
Kalahira… the sea.  
“No.” The figure says softly, like a gentle breeze blowing through the cool, Frostback mountains. “I am Cole. I’m here to help.”

Square root of 912.04 is 30.2… It all seemed harmless. Square root of 912.04 is 30.2… It all seemed harmless. Square root of 912.04 is 30.2… It all seemed harmless.  
It circulates in his head like a trapped bug in a closed room. His brother. The stranger. The experiments. It’s too loud. He needs quiet! The wires have become apart of him. Are him. The stranger inspects them. A pinprick in his arm. Nothing. 

Square root of 912.04 is 30.2… It all seemed harmless.  
Cole’s senses heighten. He hears it again. The Inquisitor didn’t understand. He must return to the Fade. That voice. So much hurt. He had to. He has to. It’s a language he doesn’t understand. Whatever Square root of 912.04 is 30.2 is, it’s hurting him. It is not harmless.  
Cole had passed many Spirits and Demons who have heard the call, but only he has gone so far to locate it. Reaching areas of the Fade not even Solas would have dreamed existed. How long had he been searching? Even he didn’t know. Solas would be taking the Veil down soon. Time is limited. Cole had passed more beings he doesn’t recognize. Dreamers, both living and passed. Some appear human, like Cullen or Dorian. Some look almost like Qunari, but they lack horns or a mean expression. None of them look like those of the Inquisition. It confuses him. But there are hurts here too. He can help. He has helped.  
The voice has become sharper now as Cole’s search continues. He’s caught glimpses of moments in his memories. Cold, naked and wrapped in metal. It is loud. Too loud. Make it quiet. Please, make it stop.   
Cole moves onward.   
“He’ll be out cold for a few days. Maybe a week. But that’s a good thing. He needs it.” Shepard said gently, lowering David’s sleeping form in a cot on the Normandy. It would take some time for them to get to the Academy. In the meantime, Shepard intended to give the kid every opportunity to recover. He had been through more than anyone should. Archer was a sick man for going to such lengths as to plug his own brother into a VI for any reason, even if it was to control the geth.  
Jack didn’t say a word, for once. She simply looked down at the kid with a sour expression. Shepard couldn’t say for certain, but it almost looked like she pitied David. If anyone could relate to what he went through, it was her. Torment and experimentation seemed to be Cerberus’s favorite past time.  
“The academy will be good for him. Good call Shepard,” Garrus said from the other side of the cot. He had been more than a little upset at the idea of letting Dr. Archer live, but Shepard’s priority was giving David his best chance at healing. Not swift vengeance. Besides, living with the pain of his actions is a far less merciful punishment.  
“Mordin will keep an eye on his vitals. In the meantime, we should all keep from crowding him.” With that, Shepard and company parted ways, leaving David to his drug-induced dreaming. 

Square root of 912.04 is 30.2… It all seemed harmless. Square root of 912.04 is 30.2… It all seemed harmless.   
It’s suddenly very loud and fast. Cole falls to what would be his knees in the material world as the hurt is suddenly everywhere. He looks around, trying to locate the source. The area around is dark like the depths of the sea. So deep you can’t see the sun overhead. Total darkness. Total pain. Nothing but pain.  
Numbers and complicated algorithms spin in Cole’s head, dancing and twirling. Each new number cuts and hurts. Where is it coming from?  
Cole tries to concentrate in the darkness. The Dreamer he’s sought is here. He needs only to find it.  
Square root of 912.04 is 30.2… It all seemed harmless.  
Cole took a single step forward, but the world around him is fighting his movements. So much fear and pain tangled up in one person. Like a ball of potential wrapped up in anger and hatred until it is choking. Clawing at what makes it it. Cut it away. Make it quiet.  
Cole takes another step. The anger is whipping at him now, warning him to stay away. He must keep going.  
Another step. And another. He can hear a voice.   
Cole doesn’t understand it, but he knows it’s numbers now. A counting system he doesn’t understand. A comfort. A sheild. Like Varric’s lies and The Iron Bull’s confidence. The same as Cassandra’s sneer or Dorian’s looks. Comforts. Anchors. It is him.   
“10,512,000 minutes. 10,512,000 divided by 525,600 is 20.”  
Cole was close enough to hear him now. Not only his words, but he feelings. He was counting indeed. Numbers. Memories. Each number a new minute of pain.  
“Yes. 20 years.” Cole spoke softly, stepping lightly as he could while fighting the pain lashing away at him. “It wasn’t harmless. Your brother loved you. His love was painful and it hurt people. It hurt you. People died. You would have died.”  
“Square root of 912.04 is 30.2… It all seemed harmless.” He whimpers softly, desperately. The young man is nude, crouched low with his hands laced over his head. It’s loud in his head and around them. His pain and anger so great it’s shifted the Fade around them. Cole didn’t even take a moment of hesitation to be amazed. Never has he known a Dreamer to shape the Fade around him with such ferocity. Only Demons and Spirits can usually do that. This is no ordinary man. He is special, must be helped. Protected.  
“You need new numbers. These have hurt you. 10,512,000 and 912.04 hurt you. So do 93.5, 75.9 and 19.1. Numbers and memories can be left forgotten. Changed.”  
“Quiet… I need… quiet.” Cole searches inside his memories. His name. David. “It’s loud. It… hurts. The square root of 8756 is 93.5. Square root of 5764 is 75.9. Square root of 365 is 19.1.”   
“They hurt because the memories hurt.” Cole stooped low and observed the fresh wounds on this man’s body. Injections, holes, chafing scars, and many that were fresh but somehow old at the same time. Scarring had formed around some of the deeper and wider holes, as if the source of the injury had been there a long time. The hurt that resonated from each injury darkened the area even more. Cole couldn’t make him forget. Not with such obvious wounds to remind him frequently. He’ll need to find another way to help. Something that changes the scratching and biting of his own memories without losing them.  
“You need new memories.”  
“Loud. It’s too loud!” David had gradually began rocking back and forth, gradually moving more and more desperately in his motions as he quickly calculated more equations so fast Cole couldn’t catch each one. As his mind sped up, the area around became even louder. The swirling darkness moving much faster. Cole continues to speak softly.  
“Yes. It will be quiet now. Count something. Find a happy moment and hold it in your hand. Collect them. Keep them. Something that makes you happy can be a new number. They don’t have to hurt you anymore.”  
Finally, David stopped rocking and lowered his hands. He looked down at them, obviously counting the wounds on his arms. Cole covered one hand with his own, forcing the David look at him. “Not these. These will not go away, but they can become soft. They can fade back where you don’t look. Something else. Something good. What helps?”  
His wild eyes slowed and David seemed to think for a moment. As he thought, different ideas formed in his head. Moments it’s quiet. How many times I see a new flower. Winning at chess. No….  
“I know… I will count.” He says softly as he straightens up, standing confidently. Cole follow his action and notes the darkness receding from around them. The sharp, dark and heavy pain falls from inside David’s chest and he stops looking at his puncture wounds. He looks straight at Cole. In Thedas, any who looked upon Cole were immediately frightened. David was not. He had known fear, monsters. Pain. He understands Cole. Understands what he is without knowing. He looks back down at his hands, calculating once again in his mind. The numbers move more slowly this time. “I know my new numbers. What to count.”  
Cole smiled. “Good. Now…” He presses his fingertips to David’s forehead, closing his eyes. “Wake up.”  
David’s form receded from where Cole stood, and the dark, crying voice followed him. Before, this area, David’s own segment of the Fade, had been loud, dark, and moving too quickly and wildly for comfort. Like a storm caught in a glass jar that only fights harder and harder to get out. Now it felt warmer, brighter. And it is quiet. It soothes instead of cuts. David is quiet. Cole allows himself only a moment of self accomplishment before he follows the sound of the next hurt in need. He might stay here for a while. So many hurts. So much pain. So much darkness.

“I’m Commander Shepard with the Alliance. I’m here to help.”  
David remained crouched where he was, but inside, his chest warmed up with happiness and relief. The three of them likely wouldn’t have lasted much longer without help. The square root of 7,432,105 is 2726.2.   
Octavia sneered, holding her and Isaac’s force field strong. “I didn’t buy it from the last guy and I’ve got no reason to buy it now.” That “last guy” is no longer around to tell his story. If she does the same thing to Shepard, they’re all doomed. David took this opportunity to protect his first ally to his life.  
David softly cut in. “The square root of 906.01 equals…” The number used to hurt him, but he’s tossed it around for a long time. On one hand, it is the last moment he had had with his brother. On the other, it was the moment Shepard rescued him.  
Shepard finally looked at him, and kind eyes softened with familiarity. “30.1” was the gentle reply. So David had been remembered.  
David looked up, “Hello, Commander Shepard.”  
Isaac’s eyes shot down with shock, and some relief krept through his fear. “David! You know this person?”  
“Yes. Rescued me from Cerberus. Sent me here.” He looked down, not giving into the painful memory. “Made it quiet.”  
Isaac and Octavia immediately dropped their shields. Shepard congratulated them on keeping themselves safe, and instructed them on where to go next to meet the other students. David stood and slowly walked toward his rescuer. The person he will eternally feel gratitude for. The person who made it quiet, and gave him a new life that is his own. Standing beside Shepard, was AI EDI, who commented on David’s improved health. “I remember you. Normandy Computer.” His happiness at seeing these familiar faces dropped to his stomach and knotted into a ball of guilt. He had attacked them with his screams. With geth that he himself commanded. He looked away for a moment with shame, then faced them again. “Sorry.”  
EDI assured him that he had nothing to be sorry about.  
“Has Grissom Academy been alright?” Shepard asked, a hint of malice that promised consequences had the academy been anything but pristine. David added this touching concern to his list of happy moments. The Square root of 7,432,106 is 2726.2.   
“Yes.” David assured. He had wanted to explain something to Shepard for some time. The dream. The boy he saw. The new numbers. His new numbers. The numbers that kept him going “I’ve been counting.”  
Shepard’s eyes widened with surprised interest and mild confusion. “Anything in particular?”  
“The number of days you lengthened my life.” He said this plainly, as it is a simple fact. Shepard looked almost sad, with a shock-dropped jaw and glistening eyes. Not knowing what to say. David didn’t wish to prolong the discomfort. And he needed to leave should he wish to continue counting these days. “The security office.” He looked in the direction of the door he had hacked before. “I hacked the lock. Guns. Lots of guns.” He waited only a moment for Shepard to understand before he made his leave. “Goodbye,” and he followed his peers to continue living. Not as his brother’s experiment, but as him.


End file.
